Guest Post: ‘The Wrestlings of an Amateur Photographer’ by Marius Potgieter

I had to put my newly acquired reading glasses on for this one.  I had read the message without it, but since I passed 40 I don’t trust what I see anymore.  This time I may as well have, as the message was the same.  My mouth went dry and the palms of my hands went slightly sweaty.  Gerry wants me to write something for the blog.  He wants me to write about how I take my photographs, what goes through my mind and things like that…  Extremely flattered I tried to think of some reason to decline, not because I did not want to, but simply because I tend to just DO things without really thinking about these things he now asked me to actually WRITE about.

Some time ago I was thinking about photography and what it was I was trying to achieve through photography.  I came up with the following thought: “I may be wrong, but I think you create a picture when you try and capture a moment with a camera, but create art when you try and capture eternity.”  Eternity to me is achieved when I manage to capture what I believe to be the essence of a subject, usually any of the three fields of photography I love most which are sea / landscapes, portraiture and macro.  I’m sure anyone who has ever achieved any form of success in photography has to agree that the success in any image is to find that something which makes it different from the rest, that different angle, that slightly different approach and the presentation of that which is out of the ordinary.

This is a little jumping spider, around 4mm in size.  I just love jumping spiders because of their huge eyes and the fact that they move their heads around to look at things, very much like humans.  This was the first one I came across since getting my 100mm f2.8 Canon macro lens, so I was very excited finding it.  After spending a little time with it I think it became curious of me and came out from under some leaves to get a better look at me.  I saw it turning upside down on a blade of grass and I moved in quickly for the shot.  As I got focus, it saw me and turned its head to look at me through its legs, in a “peek-a-boo” kind of a way.  For that split second we looked each other in the eye, I felt we had some sort of connection.  Silly isn’t it?

My daughter has fantastic eyes.  They just come alive in a photograph.  I must have a million photographs of her.  Only few are really nice in my eyes though and this happens to be one of them.  In this case she was sitting next to a north facing window and the light was falling just right as I got her to look up at me and at the same time it also created that angle which is different to all the rest.  With so many distractions in the background and a mix and match of colours, black and white was the way to go.  Not perfect by any means, but one I really love.

My first passion though is seascapes and landscapes.  Being full time employed from 8 to 5 weekdays, I am a photographic weekend warrior.  That does not mean that I do not take photography seriously or even less seriously than anyone else, be they professional or not.  Being full time employed simply means that I have less time available and I have to make use of any and all opportunity to get the shots, whether the sky is clouded over and gale force winds are blowing or not.

When it comes to sea and landscapes I am a bit of an adventurer.  I know that the pro’s  sometimes take days scouting the right locations, marking out composition spots and the like and then sometimes waiting for days, even weeks for just the right conditions in order to take the shot.  Time does not allow for me to do that, but I am blessed with a myriad of really great seascape spots around the East London coast.  I will randomly decide on a Friday to drive out the next morning to a spot, usually a spot I have not been to in a while or some times even a new place I’ve never been to.  In summer it’s rise and shine at 3:15am to get up and go and still reach the destination about an hour before sunrise.  Not even knowing the tide or what the beach looks like since the last time I’d been there makes it so much more exciting for me.  I am a believer in that I go to a spot ready to capture whatever is presented to me.

I’ve learnt that cloudy is not always bad either.  East Londen often has 364 days of them!

The hour before sunrise is the time I try and find a spot that I think may make a good composition and then get ready for things to start happening.  The half an hour before the sun breaks out over the horizon is usually the best time and then there is no time for fumbling around (as the sun breaks I usually do…).  I try and find as many compositions possible on a shoot, so I move around quite a bit.  When you only have one or at most two days a week to capture shots you try and collect as many keepers as possible.

As with macro and portraiture, finding the scene or composition that is different is what I always aim for.

This was shot at a spot that is regularly shot at Chintsa West, however everyone always go for the rock formation that looks like a little bridge between two sets of rocks with water gushing through it.  I also photograph that.  A lot.  But then I saw this exclamation mark and immediately recognised it as one of those out of the ordinary scenes that deserves to be photographed.  The light was not the best, but true to my motto I at least tried to capture whatever was presented to me in the best way I could.

The ocean is alive.  It is dynamic and full of energy.  I just love to try and capture that.  I was challenged in the past to do more landscapes as I mostly do seascapes.  In comparison and to some extent I found landscapes so much easier as it is stagnant and timing and the randomness of waves and white water does not come into play.  I just missed the dynamics of the sea.  I generally like streaky water in my seascapes but even where there are none I still try and capture something showing the dynamic of the sea.  Shutter speeds of between 1 and 3 seconds work best for me and apart from filters I will use f-stop to try and achieve this.

If given a choice I actually prefer late afternoon shoots to morning shoots.  In my opinion the light is softer and stays usable for longer.  It also opens other opportunities like the near full moon rising over the ocean the night before Good Friday in 2009.  Not an easy task I found, but very worthwhile attempting.  Here along the east coast we do not have the sun setting over the ocean, so we have to create our own opportunities!

My first visit to Hole in the Wall in March 2010 presented its own challenge.  This spot has been photographed so many times and from so many angles.  Going there I knew that my challenge was to find at least one new angle on this landmark spot.  Being there for a long weekend only this was going to be a big challenge too.  You be the judge if I succeeded.

My equipment - Until February 2010 I used a Canon 400D and am now using a Canon 50D.  My seascapes and landscapes are mostly taken with a Sigma 10-20 lens.  I regularly use a Cokin ND8 soft grad filter with good results if I can make the magenta cast work for me.  Even when using filters I sometimes find that the camera cannot manage the dynamic range and in such cases I resort to blending multiple exposures as described by Hougaard Malan elsewhere on this blog.

If you made it this far, thank you for reading!  Maybe I should just post pics in future and leave the writing parts to someone who can…!

Marius Potgieter – Amateur wrestling with photography.

Marius’s Links:

• Website: Creative Images